


Strange Meeting

by BlackEyedGirl



Category: Runaways (Comics)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-19
Updated: 2007-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:16:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1640912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackEyedGirl/pseuds/BlackEyedGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hell was a pretty boring place to be spending the rest of eternity. Luckily, Alex had people-watching to keep him amused. [Spoilers through/set post Vol 2 #24 Live Fast]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Kindly betaed by [dirty_diana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dirty_diana/profile)
> 
> Written for Scott

 

 

Hell was a pretty boring place to be spending the rest of eternity. Luckily, Alex had people-watching to keep him amused - it had always been the most interesting part of strategising anyway. People in groups were dull - all their unpredictability was averaged out until he was herding sheep. But on their own, tugged free from responsibility to family and law and the social order, there were a few worthy of study. He found himself watching Chase more than the others, more even than Nico, who seemed to spend all her time with the cyborg. Chase was usually alone.

Alex had not been a cruel person. He was sure of this, in the same way he was sure he hadn't been a _bad_ person, not exactly. But it didn't sit quite right with him, what he had done to Chase.

Chase had surprised him twice during their brief stint as team members, which put him one ahead of everyone else bar Nico. The first had been in the get-away van, Chase's blond hair spread over the floor and his neck braced on Alex's hand: _I probably had it coming_. Alex had spent the entirety of his sixteen years trying to get his father's approval, but he'd never had to dodge fists thrown in anger. Still, he hadn't corrected Chase; he'd just said no and moved back to tactics. It made it all the easier to get Chase where he needed him - full of teenage rebellion and misdirected anger, but still so easy to order around when it came to the crunch.

The second time had been Chase's fists in his shirt, slamming him against the wall. Before there had been Nico or Gert, the night after Topher, Chase's stupid surfer-boy drawl clipped as he bit and kissed his threat into Alex's neck. _You ever do that to us, bro, I swear I'll kill you_. And Alex hadn't smiled, because he had known exactly how Chase would take that. He'd nodded, and tipped his head back to let Chase think he had control. And said, I know, because it didn't matter what he said here; it was all part of the game.

Except that he had lost (or been given a draw as bad as a loss) and Chase didn't realise he'd won. Chase didn't trust Victor or Xavin, he barely trusted Nico, and he thought Karolina was blinded by the Skrull. There was just Molly he trusted, and it was with a love close to desperation. The first time Alex noticed it, he saw the avalanche set off by the falling pebble, the checkmate started way back with the movement of the first pawn: _did I do that?_

Chase trusted no one, because he had once trusted Alex.

The Gibborim were no help; pretty much children themselves, they were still baffled by how it had all gone so wrong for them. Alex had dissected and mapped out each of his mistakes within the first month here, but all they talked about was how they couldn't have predicted what happened. They had thought they were so _clever_ , tempting Chase with Gert's resurrection, the way they had tempted the Pride with the promise of eternal paradise. They thought they knew humanity: jealous and lustful and willing to screw over their nearest and dearest for an easier life. They hadn't known that Chase would offer his own life before someone else's, or that the other Runaways, even though they were pissed with Chase, would risk their lives to save him. Alex had known that.

So his fellow prisoners couldn't explain why Alex kept going back to Chase, with his bruised eyes and his unaccustomed silence. Their only shame was that they were stopped, and ended up here, stuck in this fucking existentialist play. Alex wasn't ashamed exactly, but it was the closest expression he could find to this feeling that Chase was the reason he was being punished, not beautiful Nico or fierce little Molly. That Chase was the one he needed to fix, if there was anywhere better he could aspire to be.

He found Chase lying in bed, drifting towards sleep but not there yet. Karolina and Xavin were in one room, Nico and Victor in another. It was the sort of stupid question they had used to wonder about, in whispers and fits of laughter: sex with Supergirl and sex with cylons and whether it would be different. It didn't look that different from where Alex was standing, but he wasn't exactly in the best position to tell. It was weird, though, how even without a body his chest itched with the desire to tell the robot to get the hell away from his girl.

Molly was downstairs with Old Lace, telling the dinosaur about mean boys and why she was totally going to grow up to be a lesbian like Karolina, because Chase was a... Alex hadn't known she knew words like that.

In the other room, Chase had his arms wrapped around his chest, and stared at the ceiling.

It had been a while since Alex had done this. _It's not your fault._

Chase had never grown out of the childish belief that the universe gave a damn about what he did. In his mind, everything from his parents' abuse, through Alex's betrayal, to Gert's death, could be traced back to something he had done or not done. Chase didn't realise that the world rarely spun around the actions of one person. That was why the Pride had been formed, and why Alex had followed them. The world was sick and it had been a one in a million opportunity to make it right again. Most of the time, though, punishment happened to the innocent just as well as the guilty. Then, Alex hadn't believed in karmic retribution before this.

Molly had been easier to fool. When Alex's voice tapped his mind, Chase sat straight up in bed. "Alex?"

_You always were smarter than you looked._

"And you were dumber. Which I guess is why I get to be the hot Ghost Whisperer and you're stuck as tortured dead guy. You want me to pass a message to someone? I'd say hey to Nico for you, but Vic keeps her busy these days."

_I know._

Chase wrinkled his nose. "So that's what you're doing? Perving on the girls in their underwear? Or is it the bionic man in all his glory?"

_I wanted to tell you._

Blue eyes met his own, unseeing. Alex should have planned this out better, like he had done with the games, in practice for the real fights. Nothing between them had ever been easy. He kissed Chase, as brothers do, or did, back when there still were brothers. Alex didn't know what Chase felt, a brush of lips or simply a breath of air. It was enough to send the young man scooting backwards up the bed, until his hips crashed into the headboard.

"Do that again and I'll..." Chase's voice trailed off. "Was that it?" he asked, pretending he wasn't afraid. "You've dispensed ghostly wisdom, sexually assaulted me, and now you're gonna poof back into the ether? Or hell. Please tell me it's hell. 'Cause, man, if anyone deserves it..."

_I said I wanted to tell you something._

"I don't want to hear anything you've got to say."

 _You'll want to hear this._ He stepped closer, and Chase shivered when Alex whispered in his ear. _There's somewhere else. Gert isn't with me, but..._

"Gert wouldn't stay anywhere that lets a traitor like you in."

Alex wanted to punch Chase for not getting it; all he could manage was a tap that Chase brushed off like a second kiss. _There's somewhere after this. Gert's not here. But she's somewhere else._

He didn't say that she was waiting for him, because the last thing Chase needed was another reason to die.

"And why should I trust you?" Chase asked, though his voice shook and his eyes were blue and wide open. It had always been hard to believe that Chase was the oldest.

_You don't need to. You saw me die, and I'm talking to you now. Do the math._

"Yeah. 'Cause no one like us has ever come back from the great beyond. Or been screwed over by someone pretending to do it. Dead means dead except for guys like you."

_Fine. But if you think Gert would have wanted you to..._

"Don't tell me what Gert would have wanted, you double-crossing piece of shit!"

_See. You do believe it's me._

"Get out."

_Going._

He didn't go. He just stayed quiet, and watched, as Chase peered into corners and whispered, "Alex?"

Alex waited until Chase was halfway down the stairs, catching Molly when she dived into his arms, and barely able to hear the murmur. _She loved you. She just never said it where you could hear her._

He blinked the scene away, and was back in the white realm. Alex won't be able to watch them for a while. Chase was too hard to look at, frozen there with treacherous hope burning in his eyes. Now there were two souls at stake; he was back at the chessboard and all he could do was blow at the pawns, hoping they'd wobble the right way. It had been easier when he didn't care.


End file.
